Foster Care Criticism Is Revived In Report

Unlicensed Homes, Large Caseloads Cited

Despite the influx of millions of dollars and a decade-old court order to fix Connecticut's troubled foster-care system, 365 children live in unlicensed foster homes.

Hundreds of others live in homes that exceed their licensed capacity, a new report says.

``I am deeply concerned. There are clear safety issues here,'' said state Child Advocate Jeanne Milstein. ``Let's say we had an unlicensed child-care facility caring for kids. That center would be shut down immediately.''

Other serious deficiencies -- such as foster parents not receiving mandatory support services from the state, and excessive caseloads for state overseers -- also plague the system, a federal court monitor has found.

The problems in Connecticut's foster-care system are hardly new. A class-action lawsuit brought against the state in 1989 led to the consent decree that required sweeping changes at the state Department of Children and Families.

Although DCF officials say much has changed for the better in the past decade, plaintiffs in the original lawsuit and other child advocates say too many of the same problems still exist.

As a result, they say, children are placed at risk while the state's recruitment of foster parents fails to keep pace with the number of parents leaving the system.

``We just make fitful progress,'' said Martha Stone, the lawyer who brought the class-action lawsuit against the DCF. ``The foster-care system is one of the weakest we have.''

Federal court monitor D. Ray Sirry, who will be meeting with the DCF and the plaintiffs in the 1989 lawsuit today to discuss the problems, identified a number of troubling problems in his Nov. 7 report. During a six-month survey of 51 foster families, Sirry found that:

* In 96.1 percent of the cases, the required monthly phone contacts with foster parents by DCF caseworkers were not documented.

* In 98 percent of the cases, the required quarterly in-person visitations at foster homes were not documented.

* In more than a quarter of sample cases, homes had more children than their licensed capacities. Generalized to the full population, Sirry concluded, this means hundreds of children are placed in homes that exceed their licensing capacity at any given time.

* Nearly 16 percent of the staff assigned to the homes had caseloads greater than the maximum of 40, ranging from 41 to 241 per worker.

* In only four instances did a DCF worker document that support services had been provided to a foster family.

* Data provided by the DCF show that the number of foster parents leaving the system in the past two years has far outpaced the number of people who have chosen to enter the system. The number of licensed foster homes has also dropped by about 14 percent since 1998, from 1,748 to 1,506.

``Instead of a cup that holds foster parents in, we have a tube. We put them in the top and they fall out the bottom,'' said Jean Fiorito, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Foster and Adoptive Parents.

Fiorito's agency, which contracts with the DCF to provide services for foster parents, said the agency must do a better job of supporting foster parents if it hopes to turn this trend around.

``These kids are in bad shape,'' Fiorito said, adding that foster parents frequently complain that DCF workers don't even return their phone calls -- even when something is truly wrong in the home. ``We've got to start taking care of these families if we hope to keep experienced people in the system.''

DCF Deputy Commissioner Thomas Gilman said the number of children in unlicensed homes and the number of foster parents leaving the system need to be considered in the context of the entire foster-care system, which has changed significantly over time to include a wider array of services for children.

Although it is true that the DCF has identified 365 children in unlicensed placements, Gilman said, many of those are likely living with foster parents whose licenses have lapsed, not with people who never went through the licensing process at all. Foster parents must renew their licenses every two years in Connecticut.

That means the risk to some children is not as great as the numbers might suggest, Gilman said, because the foster parents have been trained and monitored by the state.

Gilman did not know, however, what portion of the 365 children fall into this category, or for how long the licenses had lapsed. There would be a significant difference, he acknowledged, between a foster family that was three months behind in the renewal process and one whose license had expired five years ago.

And although the number of general foster homes has dropped in two years, Gilman said, the department has increased other foster care services.

The state now serves about 5,000 children in 3,083 foster homes -- which run the gamut from general foster homes to those in which foster children live with relatives to therapeutic and professional foster care for children with special needs.